101 Lead Magnet Ideas For Every Stage Of Your Marketing Funnel

How about driving that newly-built email list of leads deeper into your inbound marketing funnel so you can convert them from subscribers into actual paying customers?

Well, you’re going to need to some bad ass “ethical bribes” throughout your funnel to do that.

Lead magnets are critical to the lead generation process. And they are just as important for the rest of the funnel as well. It doesn’t matter if you’re in B2B or B2C and it doesn’t matter if you’re in SaaS or Ecommerce. If you use a sales funnel to generate traffic, turn them into leads, and then turn those leads into sales, you need lead magnets

But not just any lead magnets. You need the right ones.

That’s because the offer is everything. And when coupled with the right positioning and copy, a few good lead magnets can literally triple your lead generation almost overnight.

But just in case you’re new to this whole thing, lets do a quick 101 overview of what lead magnets even are in the first place.

What Are Lead Magnets

Lead Magnet – Noun – An irresistible bribe offering a specific chunk of value to a prospect in exchange for their contact information.

In other words, it’s something you give to a website visitor so you can collect their email address or any other contact information you need.

Spend enough time in the digital marketing world and you’ll notice that even the term lead magnet has a lot of variations to it. Chances are you’ve also heard the term lead magnet as a “free gift”, an “ethical bribe”, an “incentive”, and as a “giveaway”.

You need lead magnets if you want convince people to not only give you their email address, but also drive them down your entire funnel.

This will allow you to turn even the coldest, most skeptical leads into brand evangelists as well as helping you educate the most problem and product unaware people.

Where To Use Them

To be able to pick from this list of lead magnets effectively, you have to know where to actually use them.

For maximum effect, you’re going to want to use multiple lead magnets at every stage of the funnel.

If you’re familiar to TOFU, MOFU, BOFU, then you should know already what I’m talking about.

Basically, in an inbound marketing funnel, you are trying to turn a visitor into a lead, segment those leads away from interested prospects, and then turn turn those interested prospects into customers. Those are 3 stages you need to worry about and which you can influence with content in the form of lead magnets.

During TOFU (top of funnel), you’re focused on converting visitors into leads. In this stage, you will want to pick things that would attract a large portion of visitors into leads. Examples would be a cheat sheet or checklist.

During MOFU (middle of funnel), you should be separating those leads from the prospects who are interested in your area of focus. Examples of this would be white papers and case studies.

During BOFU (bottom of funnel), you should be focused on converting those interested prospects into customers or least allow them to try your product/service in some way, shape, or form. You can do this by offering coupons and trial offers.

And last, I would add that you can dedicate an entire page to it. This is called a landing page. It can also be called a squeeze page or an opt-in page.

The purpose of this page is to only allow for 1 action. In this case, the opt-in. There are no links to anything else. Either they sign up or X out the page.

Now, let’s move on to the list of 101 lead magnets.

Top Of Funnel (TOFU)

Cheat Sheet

Remember back in high school how awesome cheat sheets were, especially during midterm and finals time?

They were life savers back then and they are life savers to your potential email subscriber right now.

Cheat sheets make for great lead magnets because of their perceived usefulness.

Imagine writing a 3,000-5,000 word behemoth of a blog post loaded with all of your best stuff and filled to the rim with graphics or videos. Be honest with yourself, how many people do you think are actually going to read and remember the whole thing?

Not much…

And that’s why cheat sheets are so awesome. People will gladly give their email address for a 1 page cheat sheet that contains the solution your blog post revealed.

It’s like if you’re about to take an exam. Would you rather study a whole textbook or just download the cheat sheet with the exact answers you need to pass?

Checklist

Checklists are my favorite information based lead magnets.

They are very similar to cheat sheets in that checklists are also essentially 1-page summaries of whatever piece of content that they are about.

However, the big difference is that checklists are, by nature, very actionable.

“Just do X things and when you’re done, check it off. As long as you do that, you’ll be well on your way to reaching that goal.”

This is extremely valuable.

And the best part is that checklists are probably the most adaptable/flexible and easiest to make lead magnets there are right now.

Just about any “how-to” post can be adapted to a checklist that you could make in less than 5 minutes.

Toolkit

My dad loves to fix things.

And whenever he needs to fix something, he’ll bring out his toolbox with all of the essential tools he needs to get the job done.

That is what this lead magnet will do for your future email subscriber.

A toolkit is a collection of tools your prospect will need, all in one place.

For example, let’s say you serve the digital marketing community. Well, to do digital marketing, you need a bunch of tools including:

Domain registrar

Hosting

An autoresponder

A payment processor

Link analysis tools like Ahrefs

Ecommerce tools like Shopify or Bigcommerce,

And way more…

It’s a pain for someone to have to discover the best tools out there all by themselves, especially if all their prior experience with tools have been bad ones.

You can solve this problem by putting in the best tools in one place. If you have a big enough audience, you can even negotiate with these providers to give everyone who signs up a discount.

Plus, you can add your affiliate link so you make some money while you’re at it. Just be sure to disclose that information.

Resource List

Resource lists are a collection of things in one, making it very similar to a toolkit.

The big difference is that I classify a resource list as a list of things that are not tools.

Lets say I have no idea who you are and I just came to your site right now. I’m looking to be informed and entertained while you are trying to build influence and guarantee that I come back to your site to read more.

One way you could do that is by making sure I read your best and most popular blog posts.

To make sure that happens, you could make a simple “best of” resource list that I can download in exchange for my email.

These are cool because they can be specific to a topic, useful, and can be curated.

Imagine you’re starting a brand new site about nutrition for fat loss.

To make a resource list, you can just open up a word document and link to 101 fat burning, vegetarian recipes that anyone can make in under 20 minutes.

Now without even writing a single article, you have yourself a lead magnet that can be exchanged for an email address.

Free Report

The free report is a direct response classic.

“Free report reveals the top 10 ways to do X”

“Free report reveals the top 7 mistakes…”

Although I do believe free reports like the examples above are overdone and lower in perceived value, they can still be an effective lead magnet.

Just like many things, what’s important is the offer itself.

If you can figure out the topic for a free report that is high in demand, but in low supply in your market, you’ll be able to create a report your prospects will be begging to have.

This is especially true if there are not many free reports flying around in your market. Due to that market’s sophistication level, they will find your free report as unique and as a must-have.

Manifesto

I’m 1 bazillion percent capitalist, but as someone who studies persuasion and influence, even I have to admit The Communist Manifesto was genius.

That one book, with the right distribution of course, was enough to shake the entire world. Millions of people were affected, entire economies were changed, and it was even the focal point of the cold war.

What is a manifesto?

According to Wikipedia, it is “a published verbal declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government”.

In other words, it’s a book where you explain your entire stance on a particular subject. It’s usually passionate, well-thought out, and backed up with credible sources.

Now I’m not saying you’ll somehow change the world by coming up with a “Paleo Manifesto”, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful.

To make it work, you must get massive distribution, but if you get it in the hands of enough people, it’s enough to really cause some heads to turn in your market.

With the right landing page copy, a manifesto can be an intriguing lead magnet for your prospect to download.

Rich Schefrin is famous in the internet marketing world for his manifesto:

State Of The Industry

Do you want to position yourself as an authority from scratch?

You can make that happen by creating a highly detailed report on the state of your industry.

These reports are filled with both primary and secondary data to go along with expert analysis to breakdown that data into useful, actionable advice for the reader.

Many people don’t know this, but Hubspot was the one to actually coin the term “Inbound Marketing”. They “own” that term even with competition being at an all time high.

And one of the things that keeps them at the top of food chain is their yearly State of Inbound report. They’ve been doing it for 7 years now and they’re not stopping anytime soon.

You can do the same for your market. I wouldn’t go out to create an entire new term like Hubspot did with “Inbound” (They are venture backed and had a lot of resources to win the distribution game), but a well-known term will be just as good.

Predictions

I absolutely love clicking on these and I have no problem opening up 10 tabs to get predictions from ten different sites.

Even when you already know your industry like the back of your hand, it’s always interesting to hear what changes or trends can occur over the next 6-12 months.

When you make predictions, you are positioning yourself as an expert in your field because only people who understand and have been in the industry for a long time can possibly predict what is coming next.

Predictions also have built-in curiosity in them, which may just be the #1 reason why people actually buy stuff, let alone just give you their email address in exchange for access.

This can be made even more powerful by acquiring predictions from other experts and having your predictions alongside them.

Guides

If I were to rank the most used lead magnets ever, reports would be at the top of the list, followed by guides.

While reports are generally short pieces of content about a certain topic, a guide is essentially a how-to piece of content with a goal attached to it.

Due to their popularity, I also consider guides to be a little overused. However, just like with reports, it’s the market that decides what works and what doesn’t.

Again, if you can create a guide on a high in demand topic that is low in supply, then you’ve got yourself a winner.

Add that to a market that has very little free guides going around and you’ve got yourself a lead magnet just as unique as anything else out there.

Video Training

It’s a medium that you can look at, listen, and even read at the same time. It’s also generally much more entertaining and helpful to consume than text.

Furthermore, it can help build your personal brand as people will now be able to see you and associate you with the video’s quality. Plus, video is generally perceived as more valuable than both text and audio.

In some markets, such as fitness, it’s practically mandatory to use video.

In others, it’s much more rare.

However, in either case, it’s definitely a medium that more and more people are wanting to consume.

While text and audio will never go away, video will be #1 for a long time.

Survey

You wouldn’t normally think surveys would be a compelling lead magnet, but when done correctly and for the right market, they can do really well.

The truth is, no one actually cares about surveys. They are typically self-serving and bring no value to the reader.

However, you can flip it around by offering the results of the survey as the lead magnet.

Heck, you can even give the results upfront and give people a custom lead magnet based on their response, just like with quizzes.

Imagine answering a quick survey about your memory problems. Once you’re done, you see the results and you see a lead magnet that solves the specific problem the quiz revealed you had.

This engagement plus lead magnet combination works extremely well.

Email Course

Just a few years ago, email courses were all the rage.

They were simple and easy to set up. All you have to do was write up a couple of emails right to your follow up sequence and you were done.

Maybe, if you wanted to get a little fancy, you added some graphics and linked to outside sources.

Nowadays, you won’t find them as often. However, if you do it right, they can be great lead magnets that can possibly even go viral within your niched community.

If you want to do this right, a 5-part email course about the biggest cooking mistakes won’t really do much for you.

Instead, you’re going to want to think much bigger, better, and bolder. Think about your email course like a college class. College classes tend to be informative and try to cover as much as possible about a narrow topic.

So if you’re looking to making an email course about cooking, something like a 30 day email course that will teach any beginner how to become an expert in cooking Indian food at home would be perfect.

One example of this type of lead magnet that I really love is Noah Kagan’s Summer of Marketing email course.

Infographic

Infographics are amazing.

Give the right designer the right information to use in an infographic and by the end of it all, you will have yourself an amazing piece of content.

With infographics, you have the ability to squeeze a lot of information in a single piece of content while still being visually appealing. That’s why they work so well and why there are a lot of them floating around the internet.

It’s also the same reason why a visitor will gladly exchange their email address for one.

As long as that infographic is about the right topic, they will want to downloaded. Even when that same infographic is on your site to see completely for free, many people will still opt to download it so they can keep it on their computers.

PDF Version

As a reader of content in your particular market, have you ever come across a post so awesome that you wanted to keep the entire thing with you?

As a producer of content within your niche, have you ever worked so hard on a piece of content only to have to work hard again on a lead magnet for readers of that particular post?

The solution in both cases is to just get entire post as is and offer it to your readers as a downloadable PDF in exchange for their email address.

This is a fast and easy solution, especially if you create a lot of content and need a content upgrade for each post.

Feel free to apply it any of your current posts. If you have Google analytics set up, go to your most popular posts where you don’t offer a content upgrade just yet.

For those posts, just create a PDF version of that post and offer it within the content. Now watch your opt-in rates go up because of this new offer.

Video Version

Sometimes text just won’t do it for your prospect.

This is especially true in visual markets such as fitness.

Sure, you can write up an extensive post where you explain every detail there is to know about the workout with pictures to back up every exercise from every position.

It will definitely help them, but people who want to learn how to workout don’t want pictures. They want videos with you doing the exercises and telling them the coaching cues so they can do it right (I know, because I was a trainer before).

But if you offer a video version of the workout, they will appreciate it much more and will gladly give their email address for it.

Even if you’re not in a visual market like fitness, videos are still considered higher value than both text and audio, so it’s always an attractive choice.

Quizzes

Lead magnets don’t have to be just a box that says sign up to get “X”.

In fact, lead magnets that require you to engage tend to be some of the most effective. In addition, quizzes are also way more likely to be shared if you pick the right topic.

Buzzfeed is famous for creating viral quizzes. I literally see one up on Facebook like every other day.

To make it for you though, it must be a quiz that your audience wants to see.

For me, a quiz about “What type of content marketer are you?” would probably do well.

For you, it might be “What type of crossfitter are you?” or “What type of gamer are you?”

Once your prospect answers the quiz, you can play around with how you collect their email. You may ask for the email so they can get the answer or combine it with another lead magnet that is most relevant to the answer you gave them.

For example, lets say you own an ecommerce store that sells computer parts and you have a quiz titled “What type of gamer are you?”. You can either say “enter your email address for the answer” or “You are X type of gamer. Here is a guide on the best graphics cards for those type of games. Just enter your best email address to get it”.

Audio Version

The next time you go and workout, pay attention to what you’re using so you can listen to your playlist. If you don’t workout, pay attention what you put on while you’re driving to work.

Chances are, you’re listening to some kind of audio.

This is the advantage audio has over every other medium.

Just to prove my point even more, podcasting has recently undergone a big boom that is expected to continue at least for the near future due to podcasts being able to be played in cars now.

And that is why an audio version of your post may just be the lead magnet you need, especially if you publish long content to a busy audience.

This will allow them to consume your content more thoroughly and more often than if you only published a text based blog post.

Giveaways

Ever heard of Appsumo?

It’s a company founded by Noah Kagan where they sell awesome products from other creators to entrepreneurs at massively discounted prices. It’s one of my favorite companies of all time.

Noah himself is known as someone who builds huge email lists really fast.

And one of the primary ways he built Appsumo’s email list was with giveaways. His best performing one being a lifetime giveaway of about 10 Dropbox accounts in terms of both lead generation and actual ROI.

Giveaways are one of the biggest reasons why Appsumo’s email list is way past 700,000 people today.

Now, the only problem with giveaways is that they can lead to a lot of freebie seekers.

However, because of the sheer volume of emails you can acquire in a giveaway, even if many of people who sign up are just freebie seekers, you will still be left with a big enough list of leads who will become loyal customers of yours.

Calculator

Tools are always great lead magnets and calculators are a great version of them.

If you’re in the fitness market, you could offer a bodyfat calculator or a calculator that calculates your macro’s.

Another example is if you sell content marketing services. You could offer a calculator that helps discover what your content marketing budget should be.

The great thing about creating a calculator is that it doesn’t have to be expensive.

Sure, if you want to be fancy, you can pay to have an expensive, nice looking web app that has the calculation functions you need.

Your other option is just to have an excel sheet that does the work for your prospect.

In either case, it would deliver massive value in a way that most information based lead magnets just cannot.

Mind Map

One interesting fact I learned a few months ago is that mind maps are actually based on how our brain is wired.

If you’ve never seen one, I mind map is typically formatted as a circle in a middle with a topic inside. You then write then relevant things around it, circle them, and connect them with a line. You keep going until your done.

Mind maps are great because of the way all the information is organized.

Unlike in a page of text, you can literally connect thoughts together and see the connections between pieces of information.

This is especially useful when there is a lot of information to be shared or if it’s a non-linear topic where connections need to be made.

Process Flow Diagram

I’m sure you’ve seen these before.

A process flow diagram is just a pictured that shows the flow of the process your prospect should take to reach a certain goal.

One popular example of this is a roadmap.

It’s literally just a picture that says “you are here” and at the end is your goal. In between you and your goal is a road, where to move forward a step, you need to take an action.

What makes this different from regular information is that it’s visual and simple to understand.

It’s like what an infographic is to huge chunks of data, but in a flow format.

It doesn’t have to a road either. As long as you illustrate the process from “here” to “there”, you will have a successful process flow diagram your prospects would love to download.

Scripts

Advice can be very confusing sometimes.

“Just do X!”

“But what does that actually look like?”

That’s a situation where just simple advice, even if it’s the right advice, just won’t do. You must give an actual word-for-word example for your prospect to get the picture or even use.

Let’s say I write up a post about using email outreach so you can distribute your content, generate backlinks, get shares, and grow your business.

I could just say “Hey, make a list of 200 blogs and just email them that you published a new post and you wanted to let them know you mentioned them in it”.

However, if I really want to make an impact, I can just give you the 3 word-for-word email scripts I use all the time to make it happen. All you have to do is give me your email address to download them.

How’s that for a sweet deal, huh?

Generators

One of the reasons people like to buy services is because the work is done for them. The same goes for any generators that can do the same.

Imagine going to a generator whenever you so desired, inputting some basic information, and then spitting out the results you wanted.

A perfect example of this is the SumoMe Headline Generator. With this generator, all you have to do is input 6 pieces of information. They are your topic, desired outcome, action, undesirable outcome, audience, and number of points in the content.

Once you input all that information, the generator spits out over 50 headlines that you can use for FREE. Sure, you may have to fix some up, but most of the work is done for you. Not only that, but those headlines are also split into 6 categories. So it works

Now how valuable is that? If you use a blog to promote your company, you already know you need strong headlines. But with it can be daunting to even think about it, especially if you’re not good at it.

Now, with this headline generator, you can take literally seconds to input your information and instantly get over 50 headlines to help you. Even if you don’t use anything verbatim, it still is an easy and fast way to start getting your creative juices flowing.

Tools like these are some of the most valuable things you can offer. In fact, some say they might even be the next evolution of TOFU lead generation.

Summary

I remember back in elementary school, I was in a gifted class during the third and fourth grade. It was awesome because I really hated my regular teachers, so twice a week I would walk over to my gifted teacher and be with her instead.

One of the things we worked on a lot was researching stuff on the internet and either paraphrasing or summarizing that research. For some reason, I remember spending a lot of time on that.

Anyway, the point is that summaries are useful.

It’s a shorter version of a bigger piece of content where you go straight to the point. At the same time, it usually contains more information that a cheat sheet or checklist.

And in today’s world where everyone is busy, everyone is looking for a more convenient option to everything, and attention is much more scarce, summaries can be a fix to that.

Offer it as a content upgrade to your bigger pieces of content and your prospects will appreciate it.

Event Recordings

Lets say you do a live, in-person seminar and you decide to charge $500 for it. At that price tag, you’re at the low end, but it’s still extremely valuable nonetheless.

And lets say you decide to record the whole thing. By the end of the entire seminar, you have yourself a highly valuable batch of videos you can do whatever you want with it.

Now imagine offering the entire seminar as a lead magnet.

The pitch is easy. People paid $500 for tickets, plus all other expenses and now you can get all the same information for free. Just enter your best email address below to grab them.

Another idea is to split the seminar up into the most important sections. Now you have yourself multiple lead magnets you can offer.

It’s a great way to re-purpose your seminar.

Podcast Download

Podcasting is all the rage now and it’s only expected to grow even more.

Now, if you already own a podcast, you could technically offer a few of your podcasts episodes to download. That might be a little tough though because of the ease of just going to iTunes and doing it yourself.

With that said, you have a couple of options.

The first thing you can do is offer a collection of your current podcast episodes, such as the “best of the best” collection.

The second thing you can do is offer a few “never-before-seen” episodes that you can’t get just by being a subscriber on iTunes.

In both cases, now you are offering enough value that would give someone enough reason to give you their email address to download their free gifts.

Audio Book

The problem with a lot of books is that, well, you actually have to read them.

There are a lot of people in this world that hate to read, take too long too read, forget to read, don’t have time to read, or freak out about reading an entire ebook. That’s a big problem because even if people opt-in to download your ebook, if they don’t consume it, you basically have a cold lead.

You can solve that problem by letting them download the audio book version. This will allow them to learn everything you had to teach them in a way that they enjoy it. Plus, if you can have it so the audio book is set to twice the speed, they will be much more inclined to check out the entire thing.

When that happens, you’ve got yourself high quality person to sell something to later.

Templates

Sometimes, even if you give your reader exact directions, they just wont “get it”.

For example, when I started out with digital marketing, I had no idea how to cold email people so I can reach specific business results or just network with them. I read a ton of blogs, watched a ton of videos, and listened to a ton of podcasts that shared high quality information.

However, if you go to Quicksprout.com, Neil Patel shares many cold email templates he personally uses. Not only did I feel much better knowing he used it himself, but I had something that could make life easier. All I had to do was fill in the blanks.

Whenever you can save your prospect time, effort, or stress you should do it. That’s exactly what templates do.

Swipe File

A swipe file is essentially a collection of stuff that you use to come back to and get inspiration from.

Copywriters are famous for this. Check out the computer of a serious copywriter and you’ll almost always find a file or files of hundreds of ads from David Ogily, John Carlton, Gary Halbert, Eugene Shwartz and way more.

Copywriters often go back to these ads because they worked so well at making sales. So they model after them, swipe ideas, use them as a source of inspiration for new ideas. Doing this ensures that they create high converting copy on a consistent basis.

Swipe files are extremely useful for people who need to be able to generate new ideas on a consistent basis.

Free Branded Materials

Shirts, pencils, mugs…anything with your brand on it.

People like free stuff, especially when it’s something they can actually use everday like the stuff mentioned above. They will gladly exchanged their email address for free gear or even just the chance to get free gear.

When you give away free branded materials, not only do you get the email, but also the extra reach/brand awareness from them using your free gift.

Imagine building up an email list of 10,000 people who got a free branded t-shirt. Now let’s say 500 of those 10,000 actively wear your shirt for whatever reason. That’s 500 human billboards giving you free advertising.

It’s a win-win situation.

Slideshare/Powerpoint Download

There’s no doubt about it, slides are popular.

Not many people think of slideshare as a behemoth, but it’s huge, especially in the B2B place. That is proof the people absoltuetly love slides, especially when they are filled with good information and are well designed.

So why not put it up as a lead magnet?

If you publish slides on the regular, grab your most popular one and make it a lead magnet. With the right copy, people will have no problem giving you their email address for it.

Spreadsheet

In some markets, the spreadsheet may be the perfect lead magnet to offer.

And that is why spreadsheets make great lead magnets, because by nature, they are extremely useful.

Now think about your business. What can you put on a spreadsheet for your market?

Maybe a spreadsheet of 101 “superfoods” with their calories and macros? To someone looking to be healthier and get fitter, that spreadsheet would be invaluable.

Transcripts

If you do a lot of podcasts or youtube videos, then transcripts may be a great lead magnet for your business.

A lot of times, people will not be able to listen to every single piece of content you do. They also might not want to take notes when listening to your content. That is where transcripts come in.

After you record your content, you can send it to someone to transcribe for you. For just a few bucks, you’ve now repurposed your existing piece of content into an easy to download pdf.

All you have to do is format the document the transcriber sends you and you’re set.

Splinter of a book

Let say you just published a brand new book.

It’s an exciting moment for you and with the write marketing, you can generate a lot of demand for it. But what about people who still aren’t sure if they should get it or not?

Maybe all the testimonials, the copy, and quick overviews just aren’t doing enough for them. They want to actually look IN the book, before they buy the whole thing.

Well, if you offer a free chapter in exchange for their email address, you’ll solve that problem while also building a list of people who are really close to becoming customers.

Splinter of a video

If you publish long videos, you can splinter out a portion of it to be used as a lead magnet for it.

Think about movies. One of the major ways to market a movie is to create a trailer for it. This trailer shows clips of the movie, has some copy, and gets you to really want to see it.

Well chances are, you’re not trying generate leads for a movie (if you are, that’s bad ass), but you can still use this same strategy.

For example, let’s say you’re working on a huge video course. When it’s done, it’ll be multiple hours long.

You can splinter out a specific segment from that video course and use it as a lead magnet. Doing this is fast and easy, all while allowing you to build a list that would directly be interested in the product.

Splinter of an audio

If you publish long audio files, you can splinter out a portion of it as a lead magnet.

Much like if you publish a huge video course, you also have the option of publishing a huge audio course. Inside such a large course, there are always multiple topics you’re covering.

You can easily just take 1 high in-demand segment of that course and give that away in exchange for your prospects email address. This is simple and fast to do and also serves as a way to build a list of people directly interested in the full course.

Video Course

With the right positioning and copy, a video course can be an excellent lead magnet to convert traffic into email subscribers.

With video being so hot, it’s always an attractive option as a lead magnet. And in a video course, you have the opportunity to go in-depth in a topic in a way that most other lead magnets can’t.

Also, because of the sheer amount of high quality information inside, this video course can have a monetary value. In other words, you can say that it is “valued at $X”.

One great example of this is Neil Patel’s course located at the top right of his site, Quicksprout.com

Audio course

Everything that applies with the video course also applies with the audio course.

They have the same pros in that it’s a different way to consume information and they also allow you to pack your course with a lot of information. The same goes for the monetary value that you can place on it.

The one big advantage audio has over other sources is that you can consume it without having to see anything. This makes it very practical for busy people to consume, as we have talked about earlier.

Audio training

An audio training is similar to an audio course and a splinter of a longer audio by essentially being a straightforward audio that was intended to stand-alone.

Audio trainings do well in markets where you know your audience is busy. An example of this is an audio made up of busy professionals. This type of audience generally prefers to consume audio because it can be done while on their commute to work.

Another great thing about audio trainings is that you can pack in a lot of information in little time. This means that 5 minutes worth of audio training can generally allow you to share more information than a 5-minute book read.

Ebook

Complete ebooks as entire lead magnets are another classic online. I have seen on many occasions published authors offering their physical book online for free as an ebook.

This is a good option when you want to build your authority, but don’t have the funds necessary to giveaway your book in a physical format.

Considering that most adults rarely ever read books after they’ve graduated college, there is a good chance that your prospect will read your entire book.

With that said, it still can get the job done because an author is generally recognized as an authority on their subject, regardless if their book is read or not.

Physical DVD

Even today with everything being streamed, people still love physical DVD’s, especially when they are free.

A physical DVD is different from most other mediums in that it’s so rare. Chances are, most of your competitors do not offer a free and valuable physical DVD as a lead magnet.

And like most physical products, it has that “thump factor”. Things become more real and trustworthy because it’s an actual thing you can hold in your hands.

Physical CD

This feels a little old school, but it can still work.

Not too long ago, I even paid shipping to get a free CD because I wanted what was inside of it. And when I got it, even though I never use CD’s for anything, it felt pretty cool to have it.

And that’s where I want to make my 2 points.

If you offer a free, physical CD, then you need to make sure it has highly valuable information that your prospect won’t be able to get anywhere else. Otherwise, in this day and age, the CD will be useless.

Combined with the “thump factor” of physical products, the fact that is audio, and some good copy, then it can become an attractive lead magnet.

Physical Book

Being the author of a physical book is one of the best ways to position you or your brand as an expert in a topic.

The tricky part is in knowing if you can afford to giveaway a physical book for free. If your numbers show you that you can, then this is a possible lead magnet.

This lead magnet would be most helpful to higher priced services/products as trust is such a big factor in that environment and it’s much easier to recoup your investment back due to a better ROI.

Fast-Start Guide

I’ve bought huge courses before with hours upon hours of information in them.

And in many of them, actually consuming all the information is important for you to get the entire thing. But when you’re tight on time and you need to get started as soon as possible, a fast-start guide comes in really handy.

A fast-start guide is essentially a cheat sheet, but designed to get you up and running with the minimum time and effort.

If you happen to publish really long content that has a lot of steps to take, a your reader would appreciate a fast-start guide to help them start taking action and see results.

And because they can take action on your information sooner, the more likely they will take in the first place. When the do take action and see positive results, selling your product/service in the backend will be much easier.

Workbook/Worksheet

Regardless of the medium, people love actionable content.

And this is why workbooks/worksheets are so valuable. They’re inherently actionable while also usually being very simple.

Just think about your times back in school. If you were like me, basically ALL you did was fill out worksheet after worksheet. If you actually did them like you were supposed to (I don’t think I ever did), then you’ll

The difference this time is that this worksheet is something you audience actually wants to fill out.

The since it forces action, it’s an easy sell as a lead magnet.

Let’s say I give a worksheet about making a headline.

All I have to say is that if you do this worksheet, you’ll have a high converting headline in minutes.

Curated Newsletter

There is A LOT of content published these days.

In fact, 2 million blog posts are published day and over 60 hours worth of video is published on Youtube alone every minute.

With so much content floating around the interwebs, the ability to do an amazing job at curating content is a highly valuable one.

Promising future prospects that you will research 50 articles a week about certain topics, hand-pick the best 5-7, and deliver them with your insights to their inbox ever week is something a lot of people want.

Another great thing about this type of lead magnet is that people know coming in that you’re going to email them on a consistent basis. This generally means less unsubscribes because you’re telling them upfront what to expect.

Roundups

A roundup is a piece of content were you ask other experts to contribute to it.

This leaves you with a piece of content that is focused in on what the experts think, not you. When done right, roundups can be something that a lot of people would be interested, because everyone always wants to know what their favorite influencers says about the topic they are trying to learn about.

The great thing about roundups is that you don’t have to make the content.

Beyond figuring out the topic and reaching out to experts, all you have to do is collect their contributions and organize it into a blog post. If you want, you can pay someone to design it for you.

From there, you can offer it on a separate link or as a downloadable PDF.

Lists

There’s probably nothing more basic than a list.

However, at the same time, the fact that it’s basic is what makes it so valuable.

If you’re in the nutrition space, you can offer a fat loss grocery list. If you’re in the make money online space, you can offer a list of top niches to get into. If you’re in the dating space, you can make a list of the best places to have a date.

There is so much you can do here.

When you do it though, make sure it’s something people would want to save and keep it around with them. If it’s valuable enough that they will keep it around with them (such as in their phone), they’ll gladly exchange their email address for it.

Calendar

Jerry Seinfield became the richest comedian ever because of his trusty calendar.

To become a great comedian, he figured he had to write a lot of good jokes. And the only way to write a lot of good jokes is by writing a lot in the first place. So he committed himself to writing something every single day.

Every day he wrote something, regardless of how bad it was, he would X out the day as “completed”. After two consecutive weeks, he would have a string of X’s and his goal was just not to break it.

To Jerry, his calendar was worth over $800 million.

Now imagine what you can offer in a calendar format.

If you teach marketing, you could literally give a whole marketing calendar showing your prospect when he should offer sales on their product.

If you’re in fitness, you can offer a calendar that reverse engineers how your prospect can enjoy their holiday meal by showing what days they can cheat or not before that holiday.

Doodles/Illustrations

Ever hear how some of the greatest businesses made their first business plan on a napkin?

Now imagine that company giving away their original business plan as a picture on a PDF and allowing you to download it in exchange for your email address? How fast would you sign up? 1… maybe 2 seconds?

Now, of course, we don’t all have something like that and most of us are not even in the business of teaching business. But that goes to show how valuable doodles and illustrations can be.

And best of all, because of how those words are perceived, they can be ugly and prospects wouldn’t even flinch.

Heck, you could draw stick figures if you wanted. As long as they learn whatever it is you promised that they would learn, you can have all the stick figures you want.

Comic Strips

I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’m somewhat of an innovator.

While comics are used a lot for entertainment purposes, they are very rarely used online to teach pure how-to content. This is something I noticed early on and it’s one of the things that makes CopyMonk what it is today.

When my first comic was released, it went viral in the copywriting community while also receiving some traction in the marketing community.

I knew it was unique when people kept telling me it was something they’ve never seen before, which was exactly what I was going for.

However, I knew it was valuable when one person told me they were consulting a client about native ads and their client just didn’t get it. So they showed them my comic and just waited while sipping their cup of tea as their client finally understood it.

And when something is that valuable, people will give their email address for it.

If I wanted to, I could offer a comic strip that you could only get by signing up. Knowing that people love the ones on the site for free, its easy to see how they would sign up to get more.

Facebook Group/Slack Group

While in this list we talk a lot about old school lead magnets, this would probably be one of the newer ones, based off the age ol’ forum.

By definition, a Facebook group or a Slack group is a community. And based off of research of human psychology and behavior, people are naturally inclined to look for communities they can be a part of.

But because the only way you can join such a group is by being on the email list, that makes it very exclusive.

Combined with a topic they want to learn about and people inside that they can trust, being offered to join an exclusive Facebook or Slack group would be very attractive.

Build your Facebook group or Slack group right and you won’t have to do create much of the content inside of it. Plus, it makes it easy for you to distribute any future content to them.

Members Only Area

A members only area is essentially like a little membership site.

The difference is that it’s free, “gated” content. Just like every other lead magnet, people give they email address to become a members. And this members only area usually has a lot of content inside.

While I do think you should have a lot of free, “ungated” content (like regular blog posts), if there is some really high level, exclusive content you can give through a members only area, a lot of people would want to get in on it.

This is especially true if they already love your “ungated” content.

Now, whether you update this members only area like a regular membership site is totally up to you. It depends on how you go about using it.

Mobile Games

But one of the ways they marketed the movie was so amazing, I had to include it to this post.

If you don’t know already, Creed is a boxing movie that features Sylvester Stallone. It’s an offshoot of the whole Rocky Balboa series.

One day, I see an ad to download the official Creed mobile app game for free. So I went and downloaded it because fighting games are awesome. When I started playing, I immediately fell in love with it.

I’m still amazed to this day how great graphics on mobile games can be.

A few days pass and I hear my phone vibrating ruthlessly. When I go to pick up to see what it was, I saw that it was notification from the game saying to make sure and go watch Creed.

As a marketer, I thought that was genius.

What’s so great about gaming apps is that the value is in the entertainment. And guess what? Entertainment can get addicting.

Imaging someone playing your game all the time and then getting a notification to buy your product. Now that’s creative marketing.

Mobile Apps

Apps are all the rage these days.

In startup world, a lot of people focus exclusively on building an app that would eventually make then a lot of money. This includes stuff like Snapchat and Whatsapp.

However, lets say you’re not looking to become the next big app. That doesn’t mean you can’t use an app to market your existing business.

In fact, since so few people actually do it, it may just make the difference between slow and blazing fast growth.

If you make a great utility based app that people want to use all the time, has the chance to reach a ton of people. And with that reach, you can send them notifications to buy something from the app itself or on your site.

As an example, lets say you sell running shoes. If you make an amazing running app that people love, then every time someone runs 20 miles in total (or however much it takes to “use up” running shoes), your app can send an automatic notification to let them know they can buy new running shoes on your site.

Whitepapers

If you’re in the B2B space, this is probably one of the more common lead magnets you’ve seen.

A whitepaper is an authoritative report giving information on a certain issue.

In other words, it’s basically like a free report. Except the purpose of it is to position your business as an authority and to persuade the reader that based on your findings, they should do business with you.

If you’re in a space where most of your competitors offer whitepapers as lead magnets and you want to also do the same, make sure to give extra attention to how you position it and the copy used to promote it.

The fact that most B2B businesses use whitepapers means people want it, but that also means a lot of competition.

So treat your whitepaper as if it was a new product in the marketplace and you’re trying to find that gap to exploit.

Web Apps

Anything that is a tool, I love as a lead magnet.

I’ve talked about this many times in this post and I still don’t get tired of repeating it. Tools of any kind are just flat out amazing.

A web app is just a regular application on the internet. It can literally mean anything.

One amazing example of a great web app is Bryan Harris’ List Goal. It’s actually a plugin that reminds you how many email subscribers you have ever time you get on the internet.

However, to download it, you need to give your email address to get it. When that happens, Bryan then emails you periodically with list building tips.

Tools like these have high conversion rates and bring a lot of value to your customer.

Imagine Bryan starting an Aweber-like or Leadpages-like business with this. It makes for an easy sell.

Quotes

You love quotes. I love quotes. Everyone loves quotes.

It’s something you see all the time on blog posts and social media. And it’s no surprise why. People love quotes so much, they share it all the time.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a Youtube star, a famous actor, or a political figure. Quotes from anyone interesting automatically become interesting themselves, even if it’s just basic, common sense knowledge.

Now imagine offering a whole PDF filled with quotes.

So let’s say I wanted to target new entrepreneurs or even just entrepreneurs in general. One of the things that entrepreneurs appreciate the most is motivational quotes.

So what if I offered a beautifully designed PDF with 1 quote per page for 365 pages? In other words, 1 quote per day of the year.

That would probably be something entrepreneurs would give their email address for.

The same can be done in any other market.

Poster

Usually, people like to sell posters, but what about giving one away?

It doesn’t have to be printed, even though that would be awesome. Who wouldn’t want a free poster of their favorite movie? I actually have a poster from The Hobbit marathon I went to a while ago and I love it.

You can offer a digital version for people to print out.

Depending on your business, this can make a lot of sense.

Imagine offering a huge poster that your prospect can download, print out at Office Depot, and have it framed on their wall.

That’s basically a free ad your prospect would see everyday.

It’s basically what movies do with their movie posters, except your prospect will actually want to see this on a daily basis.

Newsletter Subscription

This is possibly the most basic of basic “lead magnets”.

Most people wouldn’t even consider it a lead magnet. Even I have a little trouble calling it a lead magnet. But when you do it right, it can still work.

To do so, it will require compelling copy that does not sell the fact that it’s a “newsletter subscription”. Instead, it would sell the benefits of getting on the newsletter and maybe even include some “fascination bullets”.

A fascination bullet is a bullet that tells people that there is something there and tells them where it is.

For example, lets say I offered a free “conversion by copy” email newsletter. In the copy “selling” the newsletter, I could say:

The 1 Weird Trick To Triple Your Email Open Rates (Email #4)

A great example of using benefits to actually get people to want to subscribe to something like this is Derek Halperns old “feature box”.

Replay

The one big downside to having a live event is that it’s live.

Not everyone will be able to attend such an event at a specific time. People are busy and have other matters to attend to. Even if your live event is “irresistible” and everyone possible were to show up, people would still drop off half way into it.

That is why replays are so useful.

In fact, in a lot of webinars, the first question people always ask is “will there be a replay”.

So why not offer it as a lead magnet?

This is especially true if the topic of the event is something people want to know about. And there is barely any more work to offering it since most of it was done to do the live event in the first place.

Libraries

I know this may have been a while ago, but think about the last time you’ve been to a library. There was an endless amount of stuff you could have checked out there ranging from kids books to scientific research.

And that is the same effect that a “library” lead magnet can offer. Essentially, a library is a place that curates a lot of content into one place.

If you wanted to offer a library as your lead magnet, you can curate the best the content from your marketplace and offer it in exchange for their email address.

This makes it very similar to a resource list, except the mindset when you’re curating stuff in the first place. While a resource list is specific, a library is broad.

People go to libraries, or at least they used to, to learn everything they could about a variety of topics.

And that is what makes a library special and different from other lead magnets.

Vaults

Think about what a vault actually is.

It’s basically a box that allows you to store highly sensitive things inside and then close it so no one can ever reach it. Because of the nature of that box, it’s almost impossible to break into it.

What makes a vault different from other lead magnets is that it’s a package of high valued information that only a few people can get. In this case, anyone who gives you their email address.

However, it’s different from a regular package in that it’s highly exclusive content. Sometimes, depending on the type of business, this can be filled with “proprietary knowledge” of the business itself.

For example, I can offer a vault filled with information that reveals all of my conversion rates, traffic numbers, and even revenue numbers. However, you have to give me your email address to find out.

Graphs

Graphs, when done correctly, can be extremely useful.

Much like infographics, a graph is also visual and pretty easy to understand. And whenever you can combine those two things, you’ve always got a winner.

The only downside to a graph is getting it made in the first place.

But if you’re in a market where there is a lot of information and you can figure out how to boil it down into an easy and fun to understand graph, you’re set.

And to make it even more valuable, make sure it’s an exclusive graph. Maybe it contains information that you offer nowhere else and neither do your competitors.

Then make it gated and you’ve got yourself a solid lead magnet.

Timelines

After a quick Google search, I saw that the definition of a timeline is “a graphic representation of the passage of time as a line”.

But while you may have seen this every other day in your highschool history class, you’re probably wondering how you could actually apply it.

Well, like most things, they take time. And with that fact alone means you can plot out a timeline of when stuff should or could happen.

For example, there is an article on Quicksprout titled “The 5 Stages Of Blog Growth”.

In it, Neil writes up an article to explain all 5 stages you will go through to ideally grow your blog over time.

But what if you offered a high visual timeline that showed the 5 stages in an easy to understand way instead of the 2,000+ word blog post?

In a situation like this, it makes for a great lead magnet.

Free Magazine Subscription

While offline magazine might be having trouble generating revenue, that doesn’t mean people don’t want them.

In fact, the audience of People magazine is over 80 million people. That is a lot of people saying “yes”.

Magazines make their money by making sure they have as much distribution as possible and then selling space ads for really high prices.

But if you make your money in other ways, you don’t need to depend your entire business on space ads.

Instead, you can give the magazine away for free, focus on just distribution and have all the ad space that would have been for other businesses actually be ads to sell your products and services.

One amazing example of this is a magazine for farmers called The Furrow.

Live Chat

Being able to talk to a real person is always refreshing.

This is especially true if you can ask a person you trust and admire exactly what he/she thinks about a certain topic.

What I really love about Gary Vaynerchuk’s talks is that 20% of the talk is his speech and the other 80% is usually just pure Q&A. Everyone loves it so much, he’s filmed almost 200 episodes of him doing Q&A on Youtube.

Now, a live chat can happen in multiple ways. In can happen over a google hangout, periscope, instant messaging, in-person and more.

And while each has their perceived value, they are all still high-value because of the “core” opportunity anyway.

Imagine giving that away as lead magnet.

Most of your prospects will be skeptical about you and your information, but a live chat can really fix that right up.

Sandwich Content

Sandwich content is when you offer free content, but only show half of it without giving your email address.

The theory behind it is that if you lead with free content, that will get people to start consuming and trusting you more. But before they finish the entire thing, they have to give their email address to check out the rest.

The key to making this work is that you don’t give them incomplete content. By that, I mean don’t stop your video and ask people for their email address without at least giving them a complete thought.

For example, say you are giving away 10 tips, but you automatically stop your video right in the middle of answer 4.

Instead, give people 5 complete tips. Then ask them for their email address to learn 5 more. This is basically the whole theory behind reverse squeeze pages.

“Recipes”

This is most relevant to health/fitness business, but can be adapted for other types of businesses as well.

A recipe is essentially something that tells you to get X ingredients as well as the directions to use those ingredients to make something.

The most straightforward example of this is food recipes. You can offer recipes and even make sure that those recipes need protein powder (because you happen to sell protein powder) to be completed.

The same can be for workouts. You can give an entire workout program for free and tell people who download that to get maximum results, they need to buy your supplements.

One company that does this well is T-Nation.

However, you can do this with pretty much anything.

If I wanted to, I can position copywriting as a recipe by saying you need to collect X things and then giving you the directions to write a piece of copy.

Package

A package is just literally a collection of anything in this list.

So lets say you sell basketball wear such as shoes, shorts, and sports shirts. To sell these things, you need an audience of people who want to get better at basketball.

What if you gave visitors to your site a complete “How to jump higher for basketball” package?

This package can include some video training, a cheat sheet, and a printable workout program they could do at home.

That would be an enticing lead magnet to offer. And since they are so interested at getting better for basketball, they would be the perfect people to offer your basketball apparel too.

Breakdowns

A breakdown is essentially a video training where you breakdown someone elses stuff.

In the copywriting world, you will see a lot of “copy breakdowns” where a copywriter goes through an entire piece of copy and show you what the author did at every point.

This breakdown can also includes tips to improve as well as all the good and bad stuff the author did.

Another example is a video breakdown of someone jumping. You could get someone elses video of them jumping and then breakdown their entire jumping form.

The point of the breakdown is not only to show people the thing, but to so that the viewer can see how they can improve at it.

So after a copy breakdown, the viewer should learn a couple more tricks to write better copy or at least be aware that there is more he/she can do.

After a “how to jump higher” breakdown, the viewer should come away with a few tips to jump higher.

The “We’re Live” Update

If you’re just starting a new business with a new site, you can set up your homepage to be a landing page offering people to sign up in exchange for letting them know when you’re going to be live.

There are scores of companies that started this way.

By gaining some sort of traction somewhere else and having a “viral” component to the whole sign-up process, it’s allowed even small, bootstrapped businesses go live to a list of tens of thousands of people

Now, I’m not saying that something like that will get you, in particular, tens of thousands of people on an email list.

However, if you’re just starting out and have nothing to offer, but need to focus on gaining traction, this may just be the solution for you.

Original Data/Research

One of the most useful things you can share with people is “proprietary knowledge”.

Proprietary knowledge just means knowledge only you have because you experienced it for yourself.

For example, I know that my “Native Ads Checklist” converts over 44% of people who click on it.

People are fascinated about the proprietary knowledge, because they always think the “secret” is there. Even I love reading about how other people are getting results and reading the actual numbers they’ve gotten.

One great example I love reading about this is how Noah Kagan’s OkDork.com converts 2% of all visitors to email subscribers. And with a list of over 100,000 people, his emails have, on average, a 30% open rate.

No one has these numbers but Noah.

Now imagine you sharing your proprietary knowledge. It doesn’t have to be business data like this. It can be any type of data or research that your company collected on its own.

Periodic Newsletter

A periodic newsletter is a newsletter designed to deliver updated content.

By definition, that means it can be daily, weekly, and even monthly. I wouldn’t suggest you go beyond that, if you can technically go as long as you want.

To make this work though, you have to update people on stuff that they actually want.

For example, lets say your in the fitness/nutrition industry and you want to do a periodic newsletter.

Some ideas you could try out is a daily recipe newsletter, a workout of the week newsletter, or weight loss program of the month newsletter.

As long as it’s something your prospects actually want to receive, they’ll sign up for it.

One great example of this is the Grow & Convert newsletter. They don’t update you on a periodic schedule like I explained above, but the promise of updating you about how they grow their site to 40,000 uniques in 6 months is exciting enough to get you to sign up.

Middle Of Funnel (MOFU)

Software Download

In a world where there is more information out there and more of it is becoming completely free even without an email address, anything that your prospect can actually use is even more valuable than before.

Think free plugins, wordpress themes, or anything else similar to that someone can download and use right away.

According to Jonah Berger, a researcher on viral marketing and author of Contagious, one of the 6 things that causes things that go viral is practicality.

That means that in this case, the more useful it is to your prospect, the better. Not only in terms of value, but the word of mouth that can take place once you have an initial group of downloaders.

Add that to the fact that tools generally convert visitors into email subscribers at a higher rate than information based lead magnets and you’ve got yourself a great “ethical bribe” on your hands.

Case Studies

Case studies are the ultimate form of proof.

They detail the problem, the action steps taken to solve the problem, and the result that resulted from taking those action steps. So it’s not only a glowing testimonial, but also almost like a short step-by-step “how to” article in one.

I’ve seen case studies in all sorts of markets because they just flat out work at both persuading someone of the possibilities of your product or service as well as generating general interest.

These are especially helpful if you sell high priced products and services.

I also love the fact that they are an “easy sell” because you can get very specific with all the details.

Account Registration

Are you running an ecommerce store? This just might be a perfect lead magnet for you.

So let’s say, for some weird reason, you’ve never heard of Amazon. You’re looking to grab a bunch of business books, but you don’t want to go to the bookstore to get it.

One day, little Timmy from down the street tells you about this cool website called Amazon, where you can order books online and get them really fast.

So you go to Amazon and start filling up your shopping cart like if it was Christmas. Once you’re done, you go ahead and start the checkout process. However, before you can complete the checkout process, you need to create an account.

This account requires you input your details so that during this purchase and all future purchases, your details will automatically be generated when you buy.

At the same time, Amazon now has your email address and can send you emails whenever they want.

That’s the power of account registration as a lead magnet.

Free Shipping

I personally take “reading vacations” where I’ll buy 8-12 books from Amazon and then take a week to read them all. It’s something I really enjoy doing and it always includes free shipping.

However, there are also times I go in thinking about buying just 1 book and then I see the minimum order of $35 for free shipping and saying to myself, “Darn, I might as well grab a couple more”.

And this happens to millions of people everyday on Amazon.

That is proof of how valuable free shipping is these days. So why not offer it as a lead magnet in exchange for someone’s email address?

These days, free shipping is almost expected.

And if all your prospect has to do is give their email address to get everything with free shipping, they’ll do it.

Webinar

Webinars can be great options for lead magnets.

For those that don’t know, the word webinar is a combination of the words seminar and web. In other words, it’s a seminar held online.

What’s great about webinars is that it has a lot of the characteristics of a real, in-person seminar. They are typically long talks where you deliver a lot of value and you can answer real questions from the audience.

And because of their format, you can also sell at the very end of the webinar. This includes high priced products and services.

Another cool thing about webinars is that you can set up it up to be automated.

For example, let’s say I run a webinar about which leads magnets to use at what time so you can not only generate more leads, but move your prospect down your marketing funnel.

Right before I start talking live, I make sure I’m recording it. Then I can use that recording to create a funnel where I promote the webinar, but the webinar recording plays automatically.

Any time you can make content for your audience and then repurpose it to help generate even more leads is a win in my book.

Free Tickets To Workshop/Live Event

The most valuable thing you can offer is an in-person meeting.

One form of this is a live, in-person, seminar you are having people pay a lot of money for. However, for the people who sign up to this special list, you can give them free tickets to it.

Another variation of this is by doing a live, online workshop or event.

With software like GoToMeeting, it’s not difficult to do this.

In fact, you can argue that a webinar would be the same exact thing. It is. The difference is that people would have to sign up for the webinar, but by getting free tickets to the event rather than a spot on a free webinar.

SMS Notifications

Sometimes, people just want to be notified on any updates.

And while there are a lot of ways to do this. One of the less used ways is through text message notifications. If you consume a lot of webinars, there is a good chance that you’ve been asked your phone number at least once so they could notify you 5 minutes before the webinar started.

And what is so great about notifications through text message is that they get opened and read.

In fact, the open rate of the average text message is 98% while email is at 22%.

This is a great lead magnet if you’re an event-based business. All you have to do is promise your prospect they’ll be notified and set up the landing page.

This also works if you’re not an event-based business, but position something as an event anyway.

One great example of this was when AppSumo held a Black Friday sale and invited people to give them their phone numbers so they could notify them as soon as the sale was open.

Early Bird

If you frequently release new products, this could probably be the easiest lead magnet you can offer.

You see this all the time because it’s so specific and fast to offer. It’s essentially an email list designed to attract people who want a specific offer.

This makes that email list a highly targeted list that WANTS to actually be pitched. And while you will sacrifice size, you will get quality in return.

I used to run these a lot during product launches for my clients.

What we would do is set up a landing page offering the early bird promise as a lead magnet. With that list of people who already wanted the product, when we finally launched it, we were able to pitch them hard on it.

We would them transition people from that early bird list into our regular mailing list to further nurture them again.

Certification Programs

Some of the things people will irrationally pay big bucks for is stuff like college and the certification programs within that college.

And while I think that stuff is a waste of time, many more people think that a certification is a very high value thing. And it could be, if the information inside is great and it’s perceived by others as high value thing.

So if the demand is there, why not offer a certification for free? Most certifications are expensive, but a free one can get you in the door with a lot of people looking improve their skills.

This would take a lot of time, however, the pay off can be big when you have people strutting around, proud that you certified them in a particular skill.

Think of the word of mouth, ha!

FAQ’s

FAQ stands for frequently asked questions.

Imagine you are your prospect right now and you are asking yourself a lot of questions about the product or service you want to purchase.

Technically, you can just call and have a real human answer all of your questions. This is usually the best option, which is why visitors really like it when you have live chats and a real phone number to call.

However, this can be very difficult for a regular business to offer due to the cost and manpower required to make it happen.

Instead, you can offer a FAQ as a lead magnet to “automate” this process, at least at the beginning.

If you can make an extremely helpful FAQ, your prospect will have no problem exchanging an email for it.

Tear Sheet

Is your business an offline business that uses the internet to market itself? Good. I’ve got something for you.

Tear sheets are essentially ads where you tear off a portion of it to either remind you of something or give it in exchange for something else.

So lets say you’re selling dog stuff like dog food, leashes…etc

You can allow people to give their email address to get a coupon for your online business. Except this coupon is essentially an ad that they print out and then tear off a small piece of it to take to your brick & motor store.

And before you say, “why have them waste paper and ink on an entire paper when all they needed was the tear sheet?”

It’s simple. No one said you had to use it for just 1 product. You can advertise multiple things and offer multiple coupons to tear off.

Free Sample

Free samples are a distribution staple.

Sometimes, all it takes is for your audience to use or consume a small “taste” of your product or service. Once they do so and have an amazing experience with you, they’ll come back for more.

You see a lot of this going on in grocery stores where someone will stand by a table, handing out free samples of some food.

This can be replicated online. For example, there are many supplement companies that allow you to grab your first bottle for free.

It’s a simple lead magnet that can build you a list of highly qualified prospects.

Free Version

This is very much like a software demo, except it would be the non-software equivalent.

So lets say you have a very huge, expensive course. Ideally, it’s something you want everyone to buy not only because of the profit, but also because it’s necessary knowledge for them to succeed.

One thing you can offer as a free gift is to create a much smaller and condensed FREE version of the much bigger course.

This will give people direct access to high level information while also making it for an easy sell to get them to buy the actual product.

And if they know that your course is expensive, but they see a free version of it, they will most likely sign up on the spot.

Free Coaching Session

There is nothing worth more than your time.

This also makes it one of the more valuable things to your prospect.

So assuming you have enough time to be able to actually do the coaching sessions, then this can be a very fast way to get started. It also has another advantage in that it actually allows you to talk to your customer live.

By doing that, you’ll not only give them value, but also get value in return in the form of market research.

And if you don’t have the time to do this, but have the money to allocate to it, the you can hire coaches (that you train, of course), and have them do the calls.

This lead magnet can work very well when you’re not dealing with too many people or when you have a large enough team of coaches.

Brochures

Sometimes, the perfect lead magnet is one that is literally focused on your product or service.

Brochures are typically not well suited to generate leads at the top of your marketing funnel, but they can work well in the middle of it.

By offering someone who has shown interest in your information and has already gone through the top of your marketing funnel, you can move them even closer to becoming a paying customer by offering them a brochure.

Two industries you typically see these types of offers are in the hospitality and tourism industries.

To make these work, I suggest offering a pack of brochures so that it becomes a more valuable offer, rather than just 1 brochure which many places offer for free without signing up.

Catalogs

Catalogs are one of the oldest, if not the oldest, forms of direct mail marketing there is.

However, they can also serve you well as a digital lead magnet when offered to your prospect as they arrive to the middle of your marketing funnel.

To sweeten the deal, don’t be afraid to offer something else with the catalog itself.

One example is offering a catalog where everything is X% off the regular price versus what is on the website.

Other then that, just make sure that anyone who goes through your catalog has a great experience.

Bottom Of Funnel (BOFU)

Discount Coupon

Mostly seen in ecommerce stores, a discount coupon is one of the most basic lead magnets you can offer.

The great thing about this lead magnet is that you’re not building an email list of people expecting free stuff.

While you will definitely have a much smaller list, that list will be made up of people who are more ready to buy.

However, there is one thing you should keep in mind before offering a discount coupon as a lead magnet.

It must fit your brand.

For example, if you are trying to be like the Apple of your industry, it doesn’t make sense to offer a discount.

Other then that, it’s a good lead magnet to have, especially if you’re trying to move an audience to reach the end of the buying process.

Free Consultation

What if there was a lead magnet you could offer that would allow you to get on the phone with your prospect, deliver real-time value, and then get a sale?

That is what a free consultation can do for you and your business. It’s generally seen as a lead magnet for companies with higher priced products. It’s also used a lot in service based businesses.

That human touch can make all the difference in world.

However, if you’re going to offer a free consultation, you better deliver real value. It cannot be a disguise for a sales call.

Otherwise it’s a great lead magnet, particularly when offered to someone who is in the bottom of your marketing funnel and needs to have all of their questions answered before they can finally make a purchase.

Comparison Charts

Too many choices can kill a sale

It doesn’t matter if the reason your prospect has too many choices is due to a large variety of things in stock or if you’re in a competitive industry.

Too many choices causes confusion and where there is a confusion, the majority of people will rather just drop everything than decide on something. I’m sure it’s happened to you before.

To help remedy this, you can create comparison charts that helps your prospect better able to simplify their situation and lead them to actually making a purchase.

These charts can be a possible lead magnet you offer in the middle of your funnel.

Just make sure they are nicely designed and organized so that it actually helps your prospect make a decision.

Software Demo

One way you can think about a software demo is like a video game demo.

Obviously when you buy a game, you will have access to the entire thing. However, with a demo, you’re only going to have access to a specific section of the game. This section would typically be enough to have fun, but not enough to “quench your thirst”.

That may end up leading you to buying the whole game.

The same can be said for a software demo. You can choose to allow people to download a demo version of your full software.

This demo version may allow you to use small parts of every feature, maybe allow the user to use 2-3 complete features, but block everything else, or maybe full access to the entire thing, but for a limited time.

Either way, you are allowing your prospect free access to a portion of your software.

Price Points Page

A price point page is almost exactly like a catalog, except it’s a page instead of a catalog.

Let me explain…

A lead magnet doesn’t have to be an actual downloadable piece of content. You are more than welcome to redirect someone to a page on the other side of the signup box.

A catalog is also much more comprehensive in that you can fill hundreds of products within it. On a price points page, you are selective a few things to be highlighted on the page.

This page can even be used to compare your prices versus your competitor’s prices.

That makes it a possible lead magnet for someone who is in the middle of your marketing funnel.

Free Trial

Do you sell SaaS products?

If you do and have not implemented a free trial offer for your product, you’re missing out big time.

Why? Because it’s considered as one of the best “growth hacks” there is in game.

Let’s say I’m a random guy on the internet and you are selling a SaaS product. Yea, I’ve read your content, downloaded a couple of lead magnets, and read all the great testimonials you have from satisfied customer.

However, I’m still nervous.

Even with a 30 or 60 day money back guarantee, I don’t want to risk giving you my credit card because I don’t want to be stuck getting charged every month if there are any problems.

But if you let me try your product, even if it is just for a couple of weeks, I’ll be one step closer to becoming a closer.

If someone signs up for a free trial, they are the more likely people to become customers.

This makes the free trial a great offer for those at the bottom of the funnel.

Free Quote

A favorite of service providers, the free quote is another classic lead magnet.

It’s pretty straightforward. You tell your prospect to give you their email address with extra information and you’ll get back to them with a call or email that contains their free quote.

The big mistake I see with a lot of free quotes though is that many business owners use it as their only lead magnet.

While I do agree that your free quote offer should be an prominent, if it’s the only lead magnet you have, you are missing out on a lot of people who are at the earlier stages of the buying process.

For that reason, the free quote works best once your prospect is in the middle of the funnel.

Loyalty Programs

A loyalty program is usually something you see big brands do, but very rarely do you see small businesses and even a lot of medium sized businesses try to do same.

By definition, a loyalty program is someone who has done business with you in the past.

With the right positioning and copy, it’s possible to use this as a lead magnet in the front end so visitors instantly get into a loyalty program by subscribing to the email list.

However, the most effective and obvious use of this lead magnet as at the end of your funnel. In particular, anyone who has already bought something from you and you want to keep them around by giving them special discounts.

Needs Analysis Call

A needs analysis call is basically call you have with a sales rep where the only goal is for him or her to find out your problems and needs.

On the sales rep side, it’s basically a qualification call. If he or she sees you’re qualified, they’ll move forward. Otherwise, they wont.

But when a prospect is deep into your funnel and at the cusp of hiring you, it makes for a logical lead magnet.

They get their needs heard in a non-sales environment, but still expecting to be sold at a later date. On the other side, you get to qualify the prospect and focus on just their needs instead of trying to go for the immediate sale.

Basically, this type of call just involves you talk to the prospect and asking variations of the question “how I can help you’ and then responding to their answers to see if they are a good fit.

Sales Call

As crazy as it might sound to some people, when someone is practically ready to buy, they will give their phone number and email address to get pitched at.

As long as it’s not a high pressure sales call, you should expect a customer who is basically throwing money at you. All you have to do is to answer any last few objections and close the deal.

While you technically can offer this in the front of, you’ll probably have a hard time converting many people.

Instead, offer this at the very, very bottom of your funnel so you know you will only be talking to the most ready to buy prospects.